Maestro move: Edo de Waart takes another job
mainThe frequent-flying Dutchman, 77, has been named principal guest conductor at the San Diego Symphony for the next three years, the first time this orchestra has offered such a position. He will work with music director Rafael Payare and chief exec Martha Gilmer.
De Waart, who lives in Wisconsin, is also music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
photo: Jesse Willems
And by coincidence de Waart as Music Director Laureate returns to Milwaukee this weekend (Friday night and Sunday afternoon) for semi staged performances of The Flying Dutchman. I won’t be able to attend but do have tickets for his Mahler 9th with the Milwaukee Symphony in late April.
I’ve been a de Waart fan for many, many years. This appointment makes a lot of sense. I get the feeling they wanted him to be Musical Director (no slight to Rafael Payare intended) but that his always overcrowded schedule and his age made that an impossibility, so this is the next best thing. I do wonder why de Waart packs his schedule so full; I’d be exhausted!
I’ve always liked De Waart. He’s sort of a Dutch Antal Dorati, at least in terms of getting around US orchestras; MD in SF, Minnesota and Milwaukee, now Principal Guest in SD. And has covered a lot of ground (water?) in Oceania, too: has been MD in Sydney, Perth (IIRC), and now New Zealand.
He’s both a superb conductor, an excellent selector of repertoire, and a good marketing man.
I as well have always liked de Waart, for the reasons mentioned above by fflambeau.
He was rather underappreciated here in San Francisco, having followed the more flamboyant and (seemingly) youthful Ozawa.
Congratulations to San Diego on his acquisition.
BTW, his Mahler cycle with the Netherlands Radio Phil on RCA came and went in about a second, but it is excellent.
Good luck and long life, Maestro!
He’s back in California. Interesting. San Diego loses the Chargers – who could never win – and gain Edo DeWaart instead. I guess they’ll need a bigger concert hall, with big choir space and a good pipe organ, to accommodate DeWaart’s Mahler. He likes to do Saint-Saen’s “Organ” symphony as well. Don’t expect a lot of ‘historically informed’ Haydn or Mozart programs. I might even go down there to hear something.